Bounty Hunter s Land Star (A Field Test) by Mickey Cochran When I saw the ads for the Bounty Hunter Land Star metal detector, my mind flashed back to the late 80 s when I first discovered the Big Bud Pro. The Bud Pro was an economical, deep-seeking, lightweight machine and I found my share of treasure with it. In fact, it remained in my stable of detectors until 1996. Now, looking through the new ads, my curiosity was piqued as to whether or not this new machine was of the same quality as its ancestors. I was also curious to know if this young parvenu had retained two of the old features of its elders that I had grown to like and respect; the surface blanker and the salt water switch. I happen to hunt quite a bit in trashy areas that other TH er s pass up and I also live quite close to the ocean, so I was indeed interested in the aforementioned features. Well, as it turned out, the Land Star does not have either of these features, but in my 25+ hours of testing it, I hardly missed them. Mickey Cochran It was a cold, rainy day in March when I first made Mickey Cochran s acquaintance. Mickey is a representative for Bounty Hunter. He had e- mailed me to inform me that First Texas (owner and manufacturer of B.H.) wanted to advertise on my web site, The New England Treasure Hunter (http://www.netreasure.com/tnether.html). We traded e-mail for a few days, then I decided to give him a call. We talked about the old days of treasure hunting for a while and then our conversation swung around to the Land Star (L.S., henceforth) and the similarities between it and its illustrious antecedent, The Big Bud Pro. Besides being a very personable guy, Mickey is also a veteran treasure hunter. He obviously sensed my eagerness to give it a try, so it wasn t long before he asked me to do a field test. I was nearly finished testing another machine at the time and jumped at the opportunity to test the L.S. First Impressions The detector arrived and I began to assemble the machine. The control unit, upper stem, and armrest come assembled in one piece, and the coil and lower stem as the other. I just unpacked the box and put them together, connected the coil and the batteries the metal detector was ready to go. Easy as pie.
Front Yard As I was familiar with the Bounty Hunter Bud Pro and Bud Pro SED detectors, I immediately took the L.S. into the yard for a quick test. By the way, if you aren t experienced in the use of metal detectors, I advise reading the manual first. It will save you a lot of time and grief. Anyway, after digging a few memorial pennies and a couple of clads I was ready to take it out in the field. Later that evening I sat down and read the BH manual thoroughly. It s well written and easy to understand. Features In some ways the L.S. metal detector is very similar to The B.H. SED, but the Land Star truly has an identity all of it s own. It features 5 push button controls, including an all metal automatic ground tracking push button and 3 control knobs. All Metal Mode Push the all-metal button and you are in the all-metal mode. In this mode you will read all metal targets and this mode can also be utilized to detune and pinpoint targets. The all-metal ground tracking push pad monitors and adjusts the Land Star to compensate for subtle changes in ground mineralization while hunting in the all metal mode. Disc/Notch Mode. The Discriminate mode is set by pushing the disc button and then adjusting the disc/notch knob. Pressing the Notch button puts you into the adjustable Notch mode (in this mode you can adjust your detector to notch out troublesome items, from nails to pull tabs while still detecting most good targets). Push the auto-notch button and the notch window is automatically set to reject most pull tabs while at the same time you set the disc control to reject as much or as little trash as you desire.
Notch Mode In the notch mode, the discrimination control is the notch adjustment. In this mode, all targets except those that fall into the notch window will be detected. If the discrimination control is adjusted to the pull tab position, small rings, nickels, and higher conductivity coins will be accepted, but most pull tabs will be eliminated. Tri-Tone I.D. The three tone audio ID system was like an old friend. In the discrimination mode, a target will sound off with one of three distinct tones based upon its conductivity. Nickels emit a low tone, Pull tabs and early date I.H. Cents sound off with a medium tone, and copper pennies, silver and clad dimes, quarters and half dollars, etc. respond with a high pitched "sweet" tone. Target I.D. Throughout the many hours of testing it was obvious to me that the visual target I.D. readings were very accurate, about as good as the other manufacturer s mid and top line units. By using a combination of sound and meter readings it s possible to spend an entire day just digging coins (if you are pressed for time or just plain lazy). Depth Reading I found the LCD depth meter to be about as accurate as the other major manufacturers models over GOOD targets. Targets read at odd angles will not be properly I.D. d with ANY detector. In The Field During a stretch of warm, clear weather, I took the L.S. to a beach that has a history of turning up mid-40 s silver coins in the spring and is a gold ring magnet in the summer. Here I found a couple of small, hand made silver rings, 2 gold plated rings and a few corroded clad coins. I wasn't really surprised. Unless there has been a recent Northeaster tearing up the beaches, you can't expect to find a bonanza in the early spring along the shorelines of Cape Cod.
The beaches had been pretty well vacuumed by detectorists throughout the mild winter and the only thing that would have helped me on this day was a surprise Northeaster. Unfortunately, the day was bright and clear. At dusk I headed for the car determined to do better the next time out. The Beach Again This time I was hunting a nearby beach just a day after a classic Northeaster. Not too many folks in this area are aware of just how productive this beach can be after a storm. This particular beach is very tough to hunt, as it s full of black sand and rocks, but after heavy storms it will usually produce a number of of old coins. The first 3 hours there I spent working the top and middle of the beach in low level (iron reject) discriminate mode and I had accumulated a handful of miscellaneous objects, including sinkers, lures, leaders, and.22 shells. I was becoming worn out from digging all that junk, but I kept going. Finally, my persistence was rewarded as I popped up a 1952 Ben Franklin Half at midbeach level underneath a large rock. I wasn t about to call it quits after finding that so I decided to work down near the water line. I set the L.S. to all metal and adjusted the ground balance for salt. Within 15 minutes I had mucked out of the wet sand two coal black Walking Liberty Halves, 2 nearly unrecognizable Large Cents and a few large sinkers. Even though this is a black sand beach, the L.S. was amazingly quiet near the water line. This wasn t totally unexpected, as the older Bud models I had owned also ran silent close to the water. Some of the sinkers were extremely deep, up to a foot and a half or more down in the heavy, wet sand. I recall thinking at the time that this was very good penetration for an 8" coil. I knew then that the L.S. delivers plenty of "bang for your bucks." Silver Surprises A few days later I took the LS to a local football field that had been used for recreational pursuits since the mid- 1800 s. It was a warm spring day and the ground was very moist from weeks of rain. Ideal conditions for finding silver. I started out using very little discrimination, relying on the L.S. s versatile trio of tone I.D., visual target I.D. and depth meter to identify my targets. About an hour into the hunt I received the biggest surprise of the field test a 1921 Morgan Silver Dollar. It was just 5" down and slightly tipped on its side. The Land Star s meters and high pitched tone read it dead on.
Though not a rare find by any means, it was the first Silver Dollar I had found in many years. That day I also dug a dateless V nickel and several other silver coins, including a couple of Mercury Dimes and an 1899 Barber Quarter. At the end of the day I was stiff and sore from all the digging, but I went to sleep with a smile on my face. Relic Site #1 I put the L.S. to a much tougher test the next time out as I worked a multiple use relic site that is plagued with corroded iron. After several hours of hot, sweaty work I had unearthed a few buckles and buttons that varied in size and condition, a couple of nice old locks and a 1788 Massachusetts Copper that was badly worn. The Mass. Copper was about 8" down in an area that had been heavily hunted. I was really getting the feel of the L.S. as darkness forced me to retire for the day. So I departed, convinced that this was a very serious, deep seeking machine that is adaptable to just about any situation. Relic site #2 (Field Of Thimbles) After the productive day at the last relic site, I was primed and excited to hunt Relic Site #2. This one is a little different from the other. There is very little trash at this site, mainly large, twisted and broken iron nails that can fool many detectors. In the Colonial era this was a fishing camp on a bluff by a river. My wife and I had taken many fine buckles, buttons, and State Coppers from this site in previous years and I was wondering if there was anything left. When I think of this site, it's with a certain fondness, (as far as we were the first relic hunters who had ever worked it as we know).it s always an incredible thrill to find an unworked, Colonial fishing camp and this site had produced well for us in the past. This time out, it didn t deliver any coins or buttons, but what it did produce were several fine colonial buckles and 10 thimbles. That s right, 10 thimbles. All of these thimbles were of different shapes and sizes. All were found in the same area we had hunted many times before. In over thirty years in the field, I ve never found so many old thimbles at one time or in one place.
Conclusion In terms of it s depth and discrimination capabilities I found that the Land Star is pretty much equal to most of the overpriced, over hyped, glamour machines on the market. The Land Star is very sensitive and is a quiet, smooth-operating instrument. Do I advise you to buy this machine? Well, if you are looking to buy a deep seeking, stable, accurate, target I.D. discriminator and don t want to take out a second mortgage to do so, take a look at the Land Star. Then with all the money you ve saved you can take your wife out to dinner and explain to her where you ll be every weekend for the next 2 months. :)